Growing Cold
by Sezu-Ni
Summary: After Jack dies in a battle against Pitch, he thinks its the end. Right. This is why he finds himself in a world flipped upside down complete with daily life or death situations, an ice user as a companion and a surly missing-nin to babysit. Easy. Disclaimer: Not mine. Warnings: Swearing.


**I**

* * *

_Some people are alive – only because it's illegal to kill them._

* * *

It was amusing – that in such a short life, so much has been done. Though 364 wasn't much of a _short _life.

Jack looked up from his deathbed – a small lake in Burgess – irony it seemed, was at work. Where he died, he was reborn and when he died once again – well, Jack didn't really want to think about that.

The day had started out so good too… well better than usual days anyhow.

Above him, staring stoically at the fading Spirit, Pitch spoke in quiet tones, "Guardians cannot die," shadows darkened his face, leaving only yellow eyes staring down into icy blues. "Yet it appears you are doing just that."

Jack laughed – an unfitting action in such a situation - earning a look from the Nightmare King, one that indicated a sort of morbid curiousness. "Guardians cannot die." The Winter Spirit mocked, ever the lively fellow, even in death. "I have been a Guardian for all of… " It took a while for Jack to remember, thought process slowed as his breathing grew labored.

"Five years – and yet I still have but one Believer." This time, his laugh was bitter. "I am weak, weaker than before I ever became a _Guardian_." Pitch was right, it seemed. Becoming a Guardian… would be something he would regret. "And, of course, you know what happens to Guardians without Believers…"

It was obvious – "Not to mention your little attack, that didn't help at all. I was about to _die_ anyways, you just… exacerbated it." And, for a split second, Jack thought he saw a glint of remorse in those yellow eyes – but it was gone too soon to tell.

"Exacerbated… I didn't think an intelligent work existed in your vocabulary." Though the words were sharp, the tone it was delivered in bespoke of very well hidden acknowledgement – acknowledgement of what, he didn't know, but it was something Jack just barely caught.

The Winter Spirit snorted, amused. "I have been alone for a little over three hundred years; not doing anything would have _driven _me to an even earlier grave."

This time it was Pitch who snorted, though in a way that held more grace than Jack could ever hope to match. "Jokes, Frost? In such a chilling time?"

"When would it be appropriate then?" The 'teen' shot back with a shadow of his usual wit. "I'm fading and there's nothing I can do about it – making it thornier than it has to be isn't like me at all." At this, Pitch nodded his head in recognition – knowing it to be the truth, though he still hesitated over his next question.

"Do you… Do you wish for me to procure your fellow _Guardians_?" The sentence was worded correctly – but it was the way the Nightmare King nearly _spat _the title that made the Winter Spirit laugh – if a little faintly.

"I don't want to twist your arms." He murmured in deadpan, lips quirked in a small smile. "But no. It's fine – they'll have their once a year thing, realize I'm missing, try to find me, fail, ask Manny for help and then discover I'm… gone." The light of the moon looked as if it grew brighter, as if in sorrow.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know – it's not your fault though." Pitch stood to the side, listening to the seemingly one-sided conversation with slight bemusement, a little irritation at being ignored and smidgen of an ever-present regret.

The one Spirit he could actually stand and he was dying – _fading_. Life has shown, even in the afterlife, that it wasn't fair.

"Pitch."

"Pitch."

"Pitch!" Even the child's shout was quiet.

"There is no need to yell." He murmured absently, waving away Jack's spluttering accusations with practiced ease. "And I've heard, it's nearly your time." It was easy to tell as well.

The snowy complexion the Winter Spirit used to have was turning a light colored gray while those icy blues dulled in preparation for his departure. Pale pink lips were turning white while his body kept flickering in and out of existence, already too close.

"Can I have... a request?" At Pitch's expression of distaste, acting as if he already knew what was going to be asked of him, Jack laughed/coughed before calming the other with a small, "Don't worry – I won't ask... you to stop... fighting them, it's in your nature as much as being... annoying is in mine."

The last was meant as a joke.

The Nightmare King nodded his head, face smoothing out to its normal indifferent mien, something that didn't help with his next sentence at all, "Good, as long as you know that." Jack wondered if Pitch meant the jab at his inability to not fight with the Guardians, or the annoying thing.

It took a few seconds, but Jack finally figured – eh, he was dying, so who cared.

"When you fight them..." His vision was going blurry. "When you fight them... don't use me..." His words were getting softer. "They've been through a lot... they don't need me... on their conscience... please?" It came out as a pathetic whisper, something that scared Jack to death.

The Nightmare King looked down from his perch in the skies, black sand holding him up and something akin to warmth in those otherwise apathetic eyes. "I will... try... not to use your memory as such." It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do because the bottom half of his body had already disappeared.

"Just remember..." Pale lips quirked up in a tiny smirk, "There's always time... for fun... and relax a little... Shadow Man."

And with that, Jack Frost disappeared from sight, leaving only softly falling snow everywhere else in the world.

* * *

_You have got to be kidding me._

* * *

Floating around, Jack wondered where he was.

It was cold - granted Jack was a Winter Spirit - but it was also warm and it made Jack just want to cuddle into the comfortable blanket that surrounded him... hold up. Blanket?

Shooting into the air - he could still fly, but where was his staff? - Jack looked around, only to realize he was in a forest and there was someone else with him. Peering down at the sleeping child, who was apparently his 'blanket', he wondered where the hell he was.

He wasn't in the states, that was for sure. There were no forests like these; where the earth just seemed to swell up and engulf... everything. There was no feeling of things being too crowded, or where bugs swarmed or too much people. It was... peaceful.

But it was also dark, the large moon in the sky shining down upon the clearing making it seem so much like a fairy tale story come to life. Though the kid in the middle of it all had some part in it considering _he _looked like a girl or maybe one of the dryad's he had heard so much about when talking to Bunnymund.

The boy had semi-long brown hair that curled around the sleeping figure, said figure lying on top of a patch of snow on the otherwise green - sogreensososogreen - grass. He was dressed in a brown - was it kimono or furisode, Jack could never get those two right - dress thing that looked too large for the small frame.

It was then the child stirred, opening large brown eyes holding no spark of innocence the children back home always had. In fact, while there was a certain naivete in those brown orbs, they were wiser and infinitely more darker.

"Shiro-san." Polite, more so than certain ones he could name. _And White? _"I had found you unconsciousness and had hoped to help, though I apologize for falling asleep on you." The kid bowed from his sitting position. "Gomenasai."

Jack flew down with nary a thought, curiosity getting the best of him when he started questioning the kid, intent on getting the answers he so desperately craved because if there was one, one extremely wrong thing about this place - it was that he couldn't _sense _Manny.

The Man-in-the-Moon, he-who-hast-created-Jack-Frost, the big man, the boss, the one in charge.

The moon was right there - too big for the states, or anywhere else he could think of - and there was nothing. Sure he felt the magic in it, everything was magical, but there wasn't that comforting _presence _he had grown so attached, so _accustomed _too in the last three hundred or so years.

**Where in the name of frost was he?**

And that's was the second thing he blurted out with his questioning spiel. "Who are you? Where am I? Do you know who I am? Have you seen a big man about - " He held a hand about six feet off the ground, "yay high or a rabbit - " This time it was nearly seven feet. "This high. Maybe a large lady hummingbird or a man made of sand." By the time he had started on Tooth, Jack knew he was getting desperate.

But the kid let him continue, merely watching with too observant eyes and a patience that should not have existed in a child so young. But, carry on Jack did. "Have you heard of a town called Burgess, or maybe someone called... Jack Frost?"

Slowly - ever so slowly - when the glint or some sign of recognition failed to appear in the boy's eyes, Jack drifted from his perch in the air to sit down - hard - on the grass, biting his lips and feeling more misplaced than he ever did, a feeling that even surpassed the time he was Reborn.

"Excuse me - _Jakku Furosuto_-san," The name was pronounced carefully and almost clumsily. "You don't-" The child's words were hesitant. "You don't... come from here?"

The grass surrounding the two was turning into frost. Sluggishly.

Jack looked up with no usual spark of adventure or cleverness, just one of a scared boy. Mechanically, he shook his head.

The boy then began speaking, trying to fill the silent void by responding to Jack's earlier inquiries. "I- I had deduced that your name was... _Jakku Furosuto_ when you had mentioned the name instead of just the description. As you have yet to correct me on this presumption, I will continue to do so." The child waited for any objections, and when none came, the kid bowed once more and continued to answer the questions asked, backwards and - much to Jack's horror - honestly.

"I have not heard of a town called... _baajesu_-" Again, the words were meticulously, sounding too foreign for Jack's comfort. "Nor of a man made of... sand, or a woman hummingbird, I haven't heard of a giant rabbit... and the men in my village are of average height, those taller than that are usually male's of a different... job choice. You are _Jakku Furosuto_-san, you are in a small town located in Kirigakure (Village Hidden in the Mist)."

Laying a careful hand on Jack's shoulder, the boy cocked his head to the side and blinked wide brown, eyes. "And my name is Haku. It's a pleasure to meet you _Jakku Furosuto_-san."

* * *

**How was it, tell me honestly and truthfully. And tell me if you want romance in this story and the pairings you'd prefer. But, in all honestly, I prefer slash/yaoi.  
**

**Flamers... I will tell you enthusiastically and wholeheartedly... to step on an orange lego.**

**Other than that, please come at me with the constructive critism.**

.-.

**Questions you may have: **

**1. Why is Haku's diction so much better than mine? (I'm joking... though only to those who know what diction means.)**

Because Haku is Haku and I imagine Haku to be that child that is barely allowed to play with the rest of the children (especially considering the family lives in a 'snowy' village), so Haku would read and become more verbose than most other children.

**2. J_akku Furosuto_? Really?  
**

Oh don't get yer bloomers in a twist. I got this from an officially nonofficial site that may or may not be permitted to do sanctioned translations for those of us too cheap to pay for professionally authorized downloadables and sites.

And if you were going to congratulate me on such a job well down translating Jack's name and the town Burgess' name, then I love you and offer you a cookie.

**3. What if -horrible country girl accent- we see a totally horrible grammar or spelling error, then what?**

Tell me -atrocious whining voice- siriusly. Just tell me. I wont get pissed and go on a 'flamers die' rant. I'll calmly -but still be completely pissed at myself for missing it- and easily fix it. I don't do rants... unless I'm telling the world to fuck itself.

**4... Yeah. I'm blank. **

Come at me bros.


End file.
